We’ve got 13 mins @ Arkansas, 16 mins @ Georgia Tech, 15 vs. Louisville, 13 vs. UVA, 10 @NC State, and 8 vs. Syracuse
I think we’re gonna get there without too much craziness; just maybe a few more “feature” games.
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You could probably pull some from the Duke inter squad scrimmages if you really wanted to as well.
They’ve got their Blue-White summer scrimmage as well as multiple from the Fall with officials.
(This is more of a dig at our program for not broadcasting ours)
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Really curious to see how TJP plays defense. To state the obvious, that will go a long ways to determining how much PT Tony gives him. I sorta see his reasonable upside offensively as higher than Murray or Rohde, though I guess it’s a little TBD when he would pass those two.
@Cuts_from_The_Corner And that’s the thing I’ll be most curious to see in your write up. Scheyer gave TJP a very circumscribed role on offense, so it’ll be hard to tell how good he is as a connector (basically anything other than shooting threes), but there’s only so much a coach can do to hide a guy defensively.
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Ultimately, I think Power will be play at the 4 or 5. I feel many will be surprised.
I wouldn’t be surprised at Power playing the 4. I’d be highly surprised at him playing the 5 on defense, unless the other team is playing very small (or is a low major).
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After watching Sam Hauser Marquette and Sam Hauser Virginia, and Evan Nolte first year and fourth year, I’m not really all concerned about him coming around. It may be a bit but he’ll get there.
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I agree, but it gives him the flexibility to do so. My hunch is CTB has long aspired to have 5 shooters with playmakers. Of course, not at the expense of the defense. He also loves mismatches. Powers and Saunders pulling their defenders out to the 3 point line for Ames and Warley to penetrate / create has to have him salivating!
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In many respects, Groves was like the “little girl with the curl”. When he was good (i.e., hitting from beyond the arc), he was very good, and Virginia’s offense looked a bit more than decent. When he was bad, he was pretty bad (I think Longfellow used the word “horrid”). When Groves wasn’t hitting from “3”, Virginia struggled. Furthermore, when Groves was being run off the 3 point line, dribbling the ball to the paint wasn’t a very good look for him. He struggled when attacking the rim. In fact, he looked abysmal doing so. Before we can say whether Power will be comparable to Groves, or, even, an upgrade, I’d like to see what he does when he puts the ball on the floor. Can he finish at the rim? What’s his vision like? Does he see open teammates, and can he get the ball to them without turning it over? That said, I imagine that Power’s playing time will depend on how quickly he picks up the defense and that will determine his production.
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Very first possession I see Duke put TJ Power in they change from man to zone so that’s… not encouraging haha.
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That’s why we use the Packline. It’s designed for less athletic players. It will provide him with help.
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I’m familiar with the defense and that Power’s defense is his weakness.
I wasn’t expecting it to be such that they changed their core defensive set entirely when they put him in, however.
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That was the main thing I saw from Dook fans commenting on Power’s transfer. Great floor spacer but was a noticeably awful defender, one person went as far to say one of the worst he’d seen ever at Dook lol. I would imagine that’s hyperbole and recency bias but I expect there to be plenty of growing pains with TJ, it’s gonna be a major adjustment and we might have to sacrifice a bit on that end this coming season in order to take advantage of his shooting.
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I could be wrong on this, but I’ve also always believed the packline was best at making up for unathletic guards, not unathletic wings. The wings in our best defenses were the ones who were covering up all the breakdowns from the guards (see Mitchell, Atkins, Wilkins, Diakite, etc). I don’t know that the system does great with awful wing defenders. The year Hauser was mediocre on defense, for example, so was our defense.
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One thing is Duke did actually play Power at guard some, maybe even most of his time…I have no idea, just noticed it the few times I saw him in meaningful minutes. Which I’m not saying he can’t be used as a 3 situationally, but he’s a 4. And maybe down the line as he develops it could be more common. But yeah I don’t think you’ll see that often next year at UVA.
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Duke is strangely willing to play guys out of position…and do whatever it takes to make it work, like playing zone when they play 3 bigs.
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100% fair, I agree he’ll be more comfortable guarding the 3/4 and we’re less switch heavy than Dook is.
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You know, T J is not a high school kid anymore. He should know at this point what his new coach will expect. If he is so bad defensively, you would think he would have enough self awareness and maturity to know he should be somewhere else. Maybe he is not so bad.
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I’m sure he understands what his strengths/weaknesses are at this stage, probably significantly more-so than when he committed to Dook. If a player isn’t great defensively but wants to get better in order to raise their stock for the next level there are very few places better than UVA to do so, as long as the effort is there it will come in time. I just don’t expect it to be sunshine and roses his first season here, think that would be an unrealistic expectation.
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True, and that’s what made our Packline special when we had those athletes but it was designed to compensate for the less athletic.